A wildlife defender has been awarded a settlement of £5000 by Cheshire Constabulary after being wrongfully arrested in 2019. David Griffiths was strip-searched on suspicion of having tampered with a badger trap, but the investigation was dropped due to lack of evidence. Nevertheless, he’s experienced police harassment and intimidation ever since.
This is the second time that Cheshire police have had to pay a settlement to David. Protect the Wild spoke to him about the case, and about police treatment of wildlife defenders.
David, 32, told us that he was with two other wildlife defenders on one of their regular ‘injured badger patrols’, looking for animals who had been wounded during the cull.
He said that police arrived when he and his companions were having a bite to eat:
“[The officer] asked me what I was doing. So I just said I was eating, because I was! And then he kept on waiting, and I was just like, “I don’t need to tell you anything”… And then he got us out of the vehicle.
If it was now, I wouldn’t get out of the vehicle, but I was pretty new to this. It was my first time out on the cull. It was pretty much my first experience with the police as well. So I didn’t really know my rights or anything.”
Wrongfully arrested
The officers shone ultraviolet lights on David and his companions, which they claimed revealed evidence of special SmartWater paint that trappers use to catch saboteurs.
David told the Liverpool Echo, however, that when the police shone their torches at him, “nothing showed up apart from a little bit of dried mud”.
In spite of this lack of evidence, officers proceeded to arrest all three wildlife defenders, taking them to the station and holding them for 16 hours. David was forced to strip so that police could test his clothing for traces of paint. The three also had their fingerprints and DNA taken.
David told us that they were interviewed and then ‘released under investigation’. All of David’s property was kept by the police, including his clothes and phone. He was kept under investigation for over four months.
Police repression
We asked David why he thought the police had strung out the investigation for so long. He said:
“from experience, they go out of their way to make life difficult for anyone involved in any kind of protest, and particularly animal rights stuff… They’ll do anything they can to piss you off. Another reason is [psychological stress]. I wasn’t personally bothered, mentally, but some people might have been worried.”
Once David finally received notification that the investigation against him and the others was over, he decided to take action. He got in touch with a solicitor from Broudie Jackson Canter (BJC) legal centre to start proceedings for wrongful arrest.
Once the firm had requested and received the police documents, one of the first things that became apparent was that the Crown Prosecution Service had decided almost straight away not to charge the three wildlife defenders. However, the police still strung out the investigation for as long as they could, keeping hold of the confiscated property.
When this came to light, BJC managed to obtain an initial out-of-court settlement of £500 from Cheshire Constabulary for unlawfully keeping David’s possessions.
But David pushed on with his claim for wrongful arrest and imprisonment. As is often the case with claims against the police it took years to bring the case to court. David finally managed to bring Cheshire Constabulary’s legal representatives in front of a judge in January 2025. Once in court, the police and their lawyers soon threw the towel in, agreeing to pay David a £5000 settlement before the jury had been sworn in.
Police refuse to apologise
In February 2025, when the news of the settlement was reported in the local press, Cheshire Constabulary were tight-lipped, and emphasised that although they had settled, they never admitted guilt. A spokesperson said:
“The constabulary has made no apology nor admission of liability in this case. No further comment will be made at this time.”
David told us that he was surprised by the police’s statement:
“I guess in my in my naivety, I assumed that them just paying was in and of itself an admittance of like wrongdoing and guilt, which really to anyone looking at it sensibly it is, isn’t it? They’re not going to give you money if they haven’t done something wrong,”
As far as David is concerned it had never been about the money for him anyway:
“I wanted them held accountable in court. It’s probably wishful thinking, but hopefully this might have a tiny, tiny effect on how activists are treated on the ground. If [police officers] get told from above they might just be a little less hands on, and then life will be better for other activists during the cull and in general in protests. As I say, very wishful thinking, but that was the reason.”
David hopes that now he has been successful in obtaining a settlement, his two comrades will be able to too. He also hopes that others will take similar actions against the police, and encourages everyone to “know your rights” and “record everything”.
Protect the Wild asked David how Cheshire police generally treated animal rights activists. He told us that they encountered routine harassment from the police, including facing repeated vehicle stops, even when trying to go about their daily lives outside of opposing the badger cull. David told us that police “intimidation and harassment” were unfortunately normal and to be expected for wildlife defenders involved in opposing the cull.
We asked David why, in his opinion, the police carried out this kind of harassment. He said:
“I imagine quite a few people would be intimidated by the constant stopping and searching of you in your vehicle, right? Constantly trying to find something on you, following your car. It’s both harassment and intimidation, I think”
Flagged by ANPR
David said that he regularly has his car stopped because it flags up on the police Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system. He told us that this must have been a result of his wrongful arrest in 2019, as he hasn’t been arrested since.
He recounted:
“[For example], I would be in a rural area and my registration would go off [on the ANPR]. It’s ridiculous. One time a cop car did a proper U turn, sped after me, and then there ended up being seven police cars and 10 officers just because I was driving down the road. That’s just an example of the exaggerated, heavy handed nature of how they treat you.”
Sadly, the story gets worse. According to David the police have acted aggressively to him during these stops, and said they have the right to keep on following him indefinitely, even though he hasn’t been doing anything illegal.
It hasn’t been limited to vehicle stops either. Police came to David’s house preemptively in advance of expected animal rights protests against the Grand National.
David’s story graphically illustrates how the police use a wide range of tactics to repress and deter wildlife defenders. Many of these strategies are designed as intimidation tactics to deter those who want to oppose things like the badger cull, or express other forms of dissent. Crucially, things like vehicle stops, seizing property from those arrested (wrongfully or not) and aggressive surveillance tactics are often used whether or not there is any evidence of anything illegal happening.
Protect the Wild would like to congratulate David for bringing Cheshire Constabulary’s actions to light. His experience should serve as a reminder that we need to look out for all those who are out there defending the wild, and not forget those who are experiencing police harassment.
- For more information on what to do when arrested please see our Protectors of the Wild page Arrests and the Law.
- If you’ve been wrongfully arrested, you might want to get in touch with Green and Black Cross (GBC). Check out their guide to actions against the police here.
- Six years on the badger cull is STILL taking place. Please join more than 65000 other badger supporters and sign our government petition demanding “End the Badger cull and adopt other approaches to bovine TB control”. Thank you.
